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Norridgewock town manager accepts Fairfield job

Michelle Flewelling's departure from Norridgewock follows a recent petition calling for her ouster and a meeting in which sewer commissioners tried to hold an illegal executive session to discuss her performance.

FAIRFIELD — Michelle Flewelling, Norridgewock’s embattled town manager, has been offered the same post in neighboring Fairfield, where the Town Council chairman said recent controversy surrounding Flewelling doesn’t bother him.

Chairman Robert Sezak said Thursday that the council voted unanimously Wednesday night to offer Flewelling an employment contract and she accepted the offer.

On Thursday, Sezak brushed aside any concerns about the controversies: “That reflects on Norridgewock. It doesn’t reflect on Michelle.”

Flewelling will replace former Town Manager Josh Reny, who resigned in August to take the assistant city manager position in South Portland.

Her contract is for 25 months and she will make an annual salary of $65,000 plus benefits, the same amount Reny made at the time of his departure. In Norridgewock, Flewelling was paid $58,600, including benefits.

She is scheduled to begin working in Fairfield starting Dec. 1 and said the two towns will be “working on a transition, so to basically share me between the two places until the final transition and Norridgewock finds a replacement.”

Sezak said the Fairfield council interviewed a number of qualified candidates for the position, but Flewelling emerged as the council’s preferred choice.

“When we came right down to it, Michelle was the top contender,” Sezak said. Flewelling already serves on a number of the same regional boards and committees that Reny did and should take the reins in Fairfield smoothly, Sezak added. He said the council has heard positive feedback about its choice from residents and people in the wider community.

“We feel she’ll move right into the position fairly seamlessly,” Sezak said.

Flewelling was first hired as town manager in Norridgewock in 2008 and worked at a variety of jobs in the Clinton Town Office before that, including as town clerk and office manager.

As town manager in Norridgewock, Flewelling oversaw a new three-bay addition at the town’s public works garage; the creation of a tax-increment financing district, or TIF, around a recently built natural gas pipeline; helped create and plan annual budgets; and worked on plans for the construction of a fire station, scheduled to be completed around November.

Chairman of the Norridgewock Board of Selectmen Ron Frederick said that over the last seven years, the town budget has not increased at all, “and yet we’ve been able to get a lot done.”

“I think that needs to be noted,” he said. “We have a new garage. We’re working on a new fire station. We’ve gotten several grants at the airport that she’s helped us with.”

Some residents expressed support for Curtis at the time of the firing, and she continues to hold several elective positions. Curtis, who could not be reached for comment Thursday, is on the Board of Selectmen, the Planning Board, the Budget Committee and the sewer commissioners.

Members of the Board of Selectmen said Flewelling will be hard to replace. The board will be discussing the search for a new town manager at its next meeting, which is scheduled for Wednesday.

“I was pretty shocked to hear of her leaving,” Frederick said. “It’s nothing we had planned for or pushed her to do, and I think the majority of the board hates to see her leave.”

In reacting to the statement made by Sezak, the Fairfield council chairman, about the recent controversies reflecting poorly on Norridgewock and not on Flewelling, Selectwoman Sallie Wilder said she had to agree with him.

“I thought that was a very good comment to make,” she said, adding that she doesn’t think the petition calling for Flewelling’s ouster reflects the opinions of most Norridgewock residents.

The petition was in at least three stores this week, but employees said they either did not know or could not say who had created it. A woman who worked at Triple D Redemption — where the petition had garnered more than 60 signatures — said she knew the man who had started it, but when she called him on the phone, he declined to speak with a reporter about why it was started.

“I thought it was interesting people wouldn’t comment on it, and some people signed it and had no clue who put it out,” Wilder said. “There was nobody’s name on it and you had no idea where it was coming from. It’s just typical small-minded, petty stuff.”

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maineman11111

o wow! her ship came into today
lower middle class fairfield is 1000 times better than welfare class backwater in-the-middle of the sticks norridgewock

no way. my employer is getting rid of all the pot smokers.
no pot for me, i want to stay employed

Erica Kotero

Congratulations Fairfield,this town manager is beyond difficult when trying to do business in town.She loves to roadblock and not be helpful to the citizens at all.She has made comments to me directly such as “thats not my problem” and “thats why i would never live in Norridgewock”.She also spent a good amount of time outside of the office. Good luck getting 40 hours a week out of her.

4 Seasons

if you vote then you can have a clark in the town office all the time. and from the sounds of it you should run selectman and get these idiot selectman out
get a clue come to a meeeting next wedesday 6 pm at town office vice chairman matt everett

fedup1208

Hallelujah!!!

ron caswell

well lets see who they get to replace her now hopefully not the one im thinking of

maineman11111

good for her! to get out of that rathole area up there in slum-er-set county

Hitchhiker

wow! this makes my day. LOL, Fairfield, you can have her!!!! your problem now, hahaha! she is rude, condescending, unhelpful, and lazy. AND does not like to work on Friday… ever. because of my work schedule, i could only get there on Fridays and she was NEVER in on Fridays. told me i would have to make an appointment if i want to see her on a Friday. right. because she is virtually NEVER in the office. good-bye and good riddance. YAAAAAAAY! happy weekend, everyone!

maineman11111

swear this is true:when the company i worked for had a branch up in slumerset county, no one wanted to work up there the general public in that area of maine was so rude,dumb,angry,frustrated, high strung, antagonistic and full of character flaws,

bet this was the case: shes a nice person, excellent public servant,affable person but after dealing with nut cakes up there, she changed to reflect what she had to deal with all the time.

she will do fine in fairfield and go back to the nice person, excellent public servant she is.

Hitchhiker

you have no idea what you are talking about. you sound like you are from some backwoods town without any education at all. i personally had to deal with her on more than one occaasion and she was rude before we even got started. AND she lied to my face on something i totally knew was a lie. she is a low life, without any class. so glad she is gone 🙂